Chapter Nineteen #2
Reaching over, the duke slapped his eldest son across the side of the head.
“I know you personally attempted to discourage her, Francis. Don’t think you can sneak anything past me.
I don’t think she gives a damn about this contest, if she even believes there is one.
She wants a home for her brat. In exchange for that, she’s evidently willing to wed an old carcass like me.
Wife number six, she’ll be. Puts me even with Henry the Eighth. ”
“You do realize that making more sons on her won’t remove me from my prime position,” his son said, rubbing his cheek and leaning in the other direction.
“I’m aware, you ungrateful, inching lolpoop.
” Let them think he’d given up on replacing the thick-headed, pompous muttonheads.
Yes, yes, he was old and they had solicitors, and they, unfortunately, would manage to outlive him.
In the meantime, he had his own solicitors, none of whom flinched at the unsavory, and all of whom had a great deal more imagination than one might expect of such dull drapes.
All he needed to do was produce papers that said his first and second marriages hadn’t been valid, and Francis, Henry, and their loathsome offspring all became untitled bastards.
And then he’d start over. New sons. Sons who respected him and his wisdom.
Sons who had more spleen than spite. And she would give them to him, that spitfire.
The trouble he’d already gone to in order to snare her interest, inventing a contest and laying out bait for her to follow—it had been masterful, if he said so himself.
It had also been necessary; a man, even a duke, who’d buried five wives and who wasn’t swimming in blunt like Lord Hentrose, needed to provide some sort of enticement.
“I do wish you would just die and let us get on with things,” Francis whined, “instead of making a stir and fathering more sons for me to wrangle. And the Silbern boy will get nothing from me.”
“I promised her and her brat a stipend. What you do after I’m dead, well, I don’t give a damn. Before that, I suppose I’ll have some fun. And her in my bed as often as I want her.” He licked his lower lip. Just thinking about her made him feel like a randy young buck again.
“You’re an embarrassment.”
“I’m whatever I want to be, whether you like it or not. That’s the privilege of being a duke.”
“Be assured, then, that the moment you turn up your toes, they will both be out of Howard House on their mutual backsides. I guarantee it.”
Trent snorted. “Good for you. It’s only taken fifty years, but evidently you’ve begun to grow a backbone.
” Whipping a hand out again, this time he smacked his son on the back of the head.
“Don’t ever forget who heads this family, Francis.
Me. Not you.” He grinned. “I reckon I’ve been patient long enough with Iris Silbern, as amusing as it’s been to watch her realize what she’s been pulled into.
This party will be the perfect place to make certain she won’t be trying to wiggle out from under a marriage. Or me.”
Elmond picked up his invitation again. “I’ll attend as well, then, as a potential witness to your genius if nothing else. I do prefer it, though, when you simply hire them. Marrying one just makes them think they have a voice in things.”
“I do it mainly to annoy you, Francis. Don’t forget that.”
“Yes, yes.” The marquis stood, walked for the morning room door, then stopped and turned around. “I can’t stop you, but I can make her life as miserable as you’ve made mine.”
“That’s all part of the fun, isn’t it?”
“Come along, Mr. Fredericks,” Edmund called over his shoulder as he and Iris guided Aunt Margaret’s chair up the street to Raines House, her uncle leading the way. “You’re to join us, as well.”
“I follow with bated breath; nothing could stop me, except perhaps death.”
“Only ‘perhaps’?” Edmund laughed.
“He needed it for the iambic pentameter,” Iris commented, and heard Mr. Fredericks chuckle.
“I can’t believe we’re attending a fete where a governess and a tutor are invited in the same manner as the son of an earl and his lady wife,” Aunt Margaret commented.
“I actually hesitated to accept. If you hadn’t informed me that the Duke of Trent would also be in attendance, well, your uncle and I would be at Lady Marsall’s fete tonight. ”
“Almost every night already had another event planned,” Edmund said, practically skipping as he pushed his half of the chair. “This was the dullest night for weeks.”
“Well, I won’t be telling Lady Marsall any such thing. She’s a countess. And has a tongue sharper than an axe.”
Iris looked up. Directly in front of Beckett’s door, Trent’s big black coach with its red coat of arms squatted, managing to look ominous even empty. Iris shook herself. She knew what she needed to do. What had pride and hope ever gotten her, other than raised eyebrows and noses in the air?
As Butler opened the front door and requested their invitations, which made Edmund squeal and clap his hands, she took a moment to look at her son.
He had a lean, slender build like his father, her blond hair and hazel eyes, and a face that looked solemn until the moment he smiled.
Then, his entire being seemed to light up from the inside, and it became impossible not to join in his joy.
If one of the Howards ever attempted to stomp out that sensitive center, they would rue the day.
This was all for him. And if she’d been wishing for weeks that she hadn’t allowed herself to be so blunt and so angry when she’d arrived back in London, if she’d wished that she’d been some sort of paragon of polite behavior and just the sort of lady a marquis, say, might want helping to raise his daughter, well, that was all it was. Wishing.
“Good evening.” Lord Hentrose walked up the hallway from the direction of the drawing room as they all crowded into the doorway. “Thank you so much for agreeing to attend my spectacular, if swiftly planned, dinner party.”
“We are neighbors, after all,” Uncle Harold said, shaking hands with the marquis.
“And the two young ones are practically attached at the hip,” Aunt Margaret added, bobbing up and down in her chair in an obvious bid to get them moving again.
“Watch your feet,” Iris said, as she and Butler and Bradley and Edmund hefted the chair up over the threshold.
“Your color is much improved, Lady Margaret,” Beckett noted, taking her aunt’s hand and bending over it. “I believe you will have defeated that chair within the week.”
“Ha! A chair is no match for me,” Margaret agreed, pointing down the hallway.
“Allow me, if you would, Mrs. Silbern, Master Edmund.” Bradley motioned Iris and her son aside and stepped behind the chair.
And abruptly she wasn’t shackled to her aunt all evening. “Thank you, Bradley,” she murmured, and would have kissed the footman on the cheek if that wouldn’t have definitely lost her Trent’s contest.
Beckett offered his arm. “Trent’s already here,” he commented, “as are Lord and Lady Elmond and Lord Henry and Lady Mary and young Lord Michael.”
“Oh, he’s nasty. Watch out for him,” Edmund whispered from her other side.
“I will, Edmund,” Beckett muttered back, nodding. “My thanks.”
Edmund nodded back at him. The Marquis of Elmond’s son, the nasty Lord Michael, made six Howards here this evening—four men and the two wives of the brothers.
Her own aunt and uncle would side with the Howards if any arguments arose, which raised their numbers to eight.
Lady Pauline seemed to have a similar number of allies attending this evening.
“You realize you have three factions here,” she said to Beckett as Butler introduced the lot of them. “If you pit the Grenedys against the Howards against the … well, I don’t know who we are, but the numbers would be fairly even.”
“We’re the Biscuits,” he informed her, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Hadn’t you heard?”
“I had, but I didn’t know if you’d been informed.”
“I was told yesterday, actually. But I believe in a three-way battle, we would have the advantage. We Biscuits aren’t above being underhanded.”
“Oh, we pride ourselves on it. Anything to win. Isn’t that our motto?”
“The—”
“Darling,” Lady Pauline said, gliding up to Beckett as the butler finished his introductions, “we must make certain the children sit together, don’t you think?”
Well, if that was what it took to be considered a perfect hostess, perhaps Iris had a chance, after all.
But then she’d simply assumed Becks and Edmund would be sitting next to each other.
Evidently, though, even the obvious needed to be stated aloud, so someone could claim credit for it.
No wonder she so frequently felt like she was drowning in a well-dressed, over-perfumed sea of propriety.
She glanced at Lady Pauline, to see the woman gazing at her.
A slight, amused smile curved red lips, but didn’t touch her eyes.
Ah, Iris realized, she’d been measured and found wanting.
Her dress was her finest, the violet-and-mauve silk-and-lace gown with elaborate beading, and matching ribbons twined throughout her elaborate bun and its twisting blond curls dripping about her face.
She also knew it would have been the height of fashion seven or eight Seasons ago, and that now the shoulders were a bit too puffy, the neckline a bit too high, and if one looked closely enough, the lace ruffles at the bottom of the gown had been replaced and in bright-enough light didn’t quite match the rest of the ensemble.
She knew it was too fancy for a dinner party that included children and servants, but Edmund had wanted her to wear it, and until Pauline’s glance, she’d felt pretty in it.
Rolling her shoulders, she reached over to brush her finger against Edmund’s cheek.
No. She still felt pretty. And she felt …
proud. Lord Hentrose, Beckett, had several times complimented her on what a fine boy Edmund was, and she’d seen it herself, things she hadn’t even anticipated but that had warmed her to her bones.
In light of that, well, who gave a damn if her dress wasn’t quite the thing? Iris flashed Pauline a bright grin.
“Is it time to eat now?” Rebecca asked, bouncing up to take her father’s hand. “I ate a very small luncheon so I would have all my appetite this evening.”
Beckett lifted an eyebrow at Butler, who nodded. “I believe it is. If you would, Butler?”
“With pleasure, my lord. Lords and ladies and gentleman, dinner is served.” Turning his back, the butler threw open the doors of the large dining room and stepped aside.
Iris blinked. When she’d come for dinner previously, they’d eaten in the small dining room, which could comfortably accommodate a dozen people. Four times that would fit into the large dining room, and still leave space for another twenty-five or so miscellaneous guests.
More impressive than the sheer size of the room, though, was the way it glittered.
Silver-appointed chandeliers dripping with crystals, silver candlesticks, crystal vases of bright red and pink and yellow roses, silver utensils and a sheer white tablecloth decorated with doves and olive leaves formed of silver thread.
Even lofty Lord Elmond looked impressed, when she’d thought Trent’s oldest son didn’t have that capability.
“Oh!” Rebecca exclaimed. “It’s like a fairy tale!”
Her father grinned, clearly pleased at his daughter’s delight. “We do not stand on ceremony in Raines House,” he said in a carrying voice. “All of my guests are equally welcome. Everyone to the table, if you please. You’ll find your names on the plates.”
He’d assigned seats. Or the children had. Either way, this would be interesting. “You did this with one day’s notice?” she asked, stepping back as he, Pauline on his arm, started through the drawing room doors.
“Butler and the staff did it,” he returned over his shoulder. “I only suggested that the words ‘too fancy’ be eliminated from their vocabulary.”
“They seem to have understood your direction,” she said, chuckling. “Well done.”
A hand slid around her arm, pulling her sideways. “I request a private word with you after dinner,” the Duke of Trent murmured, his mouth brushing her ear.
Iris stifled a shudder at the whispery, intimate tickle, and at what his words likely meant.
A marriage proposal. The end of the last of her stupid, silly daydreams where her life went as she wanted it to, where they could all be happy and she would be able to stop worrying.
God, how long had it been since she hadn’t had anything to worry over?
Ten years? Eleven? Her last worry-free moment had probably been the night she’d gotten strawberry cream all over Beckett Raines’s coat.
She glanced at him holding the chair for Lady Pauline.
Eleven years ago they were two strong-minded, opinionated people who would have butted heads at every turn, each thinking they knew best. And now that they knew better, it was too late.
She’d managed to fall madly in love, but with the wrong man. Oh, she detested irony.